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Dallas Business Journal - September 11-17, 1998
PEO: How to Attract and Keep the Best Employees
By Kenny Randle
Business owners trying to keep their companies
competitive are facing the worst labor shortage in 20 years. It
is becoming increasingly difficult to find and retain qualified
workers in many sectors of the service industry, as well as in many
professional fields.
The employment market belongs more and more to the sellers, and
these sellers are very choosy about where they want to go.
So how do you attract these "impact players"
and then keep them?
It’s not as hard as you might think. You
simply find out what they want and give it to them. Here’s
how.
In an age of corporate downsizing and rapid
change, most good workers want a solid employee benefits package,
a competitive salary and a positive, opportunity-rich working environment.
Now before you throw up your entrepreneurial hands in frustration
over being able to provide such a Camelot, you might want to consider
using the services of a professional employer organization. You’ll
be in good company.
Owners of thousands of small- and medium-sized
businesses have discovered they can improve their business focus,
increase the benefits they can offer employees and improve worker
productivity by outsourcing their human resources needs to a PEO.
By serving as an off-site human resources department,
the PEO ensures that the responsibilities of payroll, employee benefits,
workers’ compensation, regulatory compliance and other important
personnel matters are handled efficiently and accurately.
PEOs have been around for nearly 15 years and
have experienced their greatest growth since 1990. The concept is
actually quite simple – through a service agreement, the business
owner and the PEO allocate employment responsibilities between them.
The PEO assumes many of the time-consuming,
liability-laden duties of managing employees in return for a service
fee, while the business owner retains managerial control as the
on-site supervisor and returns to running the core business.
Critical Areas
Many business owners turn to PEOs initially
for help with two critical areas: improving and managing employee
benefits and obtaining administrative relief. Numerous studies show
that small businesses are at a distinct disadvantage to larger businesses
in the area of employee benefits.
PEOs level this playing field by using the purchasing
power of thousands of employees to negotiate better rates on everything
from health insurance to human resources training courses.
What this means is that with the stroke of a
pen, your small business may be able to offer current and prospective
employees the benefits of a Fortune 500 company, but in a small
business setting.
These benefits can include a selection of excellent
medical and dental plans, vision care, a 401(k) plan, credit union,
adoption assistance and even an employee assistance program to help
with short-term counseling needs. And not only will you have a better
benefits plan, but you will not incur the administrative headaches
that go along with managing them.
And speaking of administrative relief, a PEO’s
services extend to all other "regularly scheduled business
interruptions" related to having employees – chores like
tax filings, workers’ compensation audits, employee paperwork
and maintaining regulatory compliance. This is an important part
of building an "opportunity rich" working environment.
To do so requires the business owner to approach
his or her core business with a laser-like focus, something that’s
nearly impossible to do when you are not distracted with employment
management responsibilities. By outsourcing nonproductive time-consuming
tasks, you’re freed up to address product/service issues and
fine-tune your core business processes.
Employment Resources
As valuable as administrative relief and improved
benefits may be, PEOs also provide weary entrepreneurs with other
vital employment resources – resources like productivity-based
training courses in time management, communications skills, customer
service, team building and total quality management.
In fact, a top-of-the-line PEO can develop a
customized training program based on your long-range goals.
Another PEO benefit is the ability to reduce
your employment liability exposure. To properly manage liability,
you should follow a simple three-point plan: transfer all the liability
you can; share whatever you can’t transfer and better manage
anything that’s left over.
A PEO allows you to do exactly that.
A PEO can also help you locate top quality job
candidates by professionally helping you craft a solid job description,
running ads, reviewing resumes and even conducting interviews.
You wind up looking at the top two or three
candidates and selecting one you feel will enhance your business
efforts.
So it’s really not as hard as you might
have thought to find and retain the best employees. Not if you use
a top-notch PEO.
Kenny Randle is a Dallas District manager for
Administaff, Inc. (NYSE: ASF), a leading professional employer organization.
For more information about Administaff, contact the nearest office
at 800-465-3800 or visit the company’s web site at http://www.administaff.com.
Reprinted with permission of the Dallas Business Journal.
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